


On A String

by alittlefellowinawideworld



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 01:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13136400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlefellowinawideworld/pseuds/alittlefellowinawideworld
Summary: “You kill people! People-bikers! And scary crossbow guys and serial killers, just come over here and-”“I already told you,” Bart’s retort was muffled through bun and meat from a bite of her deadly snack, “I don’t do bugs.”





	On A String

**Author's Note:**

> This work was created as part of the DGHDA Christmas Mini Bang, with art by the incomparable cynassa on tumblr (link: http://cynassa.tumblr.com/post/168910937196) (God, I love it! That red haze/spider lily combo is genius)
> 
> In a rough week where the fate and legacy of this show has been in question, I am so grateful for a beautiful fandom that reminds me why I love this world.
> 
> *Minor references to spiders, but as I'm a bit of an arachniphobe I kept them brief*

“THIS?!?!? THIS IS WHERE YOU DRAW THE LINE?”

The passers by in the parking lot of this Shell station had already turned back to their own cars a minute ago, seeing nothing apparently exciting about the two disheveled hotel bellhops currently glaring and lobbing words at each other over the hood of their...yellow taxi? 

A dog lounged in the shade under the car, stoically ignoring the way the man’s voice proceeded to get  
more and more shrill. The recipient of said shrillness appeared equally unimpressed, brandishing a hot dog at their friend in a manner that almost appeared sinister.

“You do it, if you’re so worked up about the little guy.”

“LITTLE! You-”

Ken’s eyes darted around as he cut off his next words, honest bewilderment mellowing out the  
harsh whispering as he continued, hissing across the car at his friend.

“You kill people! People-bikers! And scary crossbow guys and serial killers, just come over here  
and-”

“I already told you,” Bart’s retort was muffled through bun and meat from a bite of her deadly  
snack, “I don’t do bugs.”

The brown recluse spider, currently causing the stalemate from its place on Ken’s dashboard,  
said nothing in its own defense.

The one time it would be useful to have a terrifying assassin for a friend...

“People are dumb,anyways,”

With surprising force, Bart threw her hot dog at the ground and hunched over so her head lightly thunked against the glass of the car’s window, staring at the little eight legged terror. 

Ken found himself caught between having an argument with thin air, or hunching over himself so he could maintain some kind of eye contact. Feeling a bit exposed in the open parking lot, he gave a quiet sigh and followed his instincts from the past week or so. He put himself at Bart’s level, seeing from her perspective. Ken’s arms were folded uncomfortably against the car door, leaning forward with his hips jutted out until his head rested gently against the glass.

Bart still didn’t look at him, ignoring the space between their parallel windows and instead  
maintained complete focus on the spider, one deadly creature observing another.

“Well, people don’t have pincers,” he tried. No response.

“Bart, this is ridiculous. It’s just a spider. We’re just-”

Nothing but a stubborn shake of her head, and more silence. Something sharp and tired in  
Ken’s mind rose up at that obstinate quiet. He’d been at the beck and call of Bart and the  
universe and pushed and pulled and he just wanted some-

“People are dumb.”

Bart still wasn’t making eye contact. Chin jutted forward, hunched as she was, Ken noticed how small she looked behind the glass. He couldn’t help but feel the distance between them, that Bart had placed between them, with him observing her through this window just as she observed that spider. Each of them framed within their own clear barrier. Mood suddenly shifted, Bart’s words were dampened through the car as she continued.

“People just pretend. They say they’re nice and then they do bad things. Spiders don’t do that,  
they just do what they do. They kill things and they eat and they move around, and they don’t  
bother nothin…”

Ken had no response to that. He left the space dangling between them, feeling as though there was something brewing within his wayward friend, something removed from himself and outside of his comment or control.

The spider slowly crawled across an air vent. 

Bart smashed a finger against the glass, and then her nose. Then a whole palm, fingers outstretched. Her voice was small, and he strained to hear it.

“I don’t try to bother nothin’, I know what I gotta do and I just do it. But people, they don’t understand, they don’t leave me alone. Or they do, and they put me in boxes, and I’m alone and there’s no radios or food or showers and it’s just me and me and me and-”

“Hey, hey. It’s alright.” 

Ken made to walk around the car, but a thump of Bart’s outstretched palm stopped him. He returned to his previous spot, their spontaneous car shaped confessional, and the delicate balance of their conversation.

“Ok. I’ve...never heard you talk about your past  
before.”

“I don’t talk a lot.”

“You didn’t do a lot of things before.”

She snorted in response, a quiet sort of exhaling reflex that seemed to Ken part amusement, part something else.

“There was this place, these people. I was on my own for a really long time, and then they found me and they put me in this box. But I was still alone. I think… I think I scared them, you know?”

Fingers traced slow, indistinct patterns on the glass.

“Anyways, no one would come sit with me. One guy, he died. He tripped or something, I didn’t  
even have to touch him. But all the white coats, they freaked out. You could hear them all  
shouting at each other and crying. They didn’t understand that’s just how it works!”

It. The universe, destiny, whatever pushed Bart, and now Ken, along their path.

Like so many hours this week, the pause lengthened as Ken's brain cycled through what to say, the right words in response to that story. His friend. The vehicle for his destiny. A small person.

"So they locked you away. Because they didn't understand. That... sounds pretty lonely."

Maybe it was the wrong tactic. Either way, he could see her face rebel from the emotion, contorting as it tried to smooth into a smirk even as her eyes tightened and brow furrowed.

"Spiders don't care. They can get into anything, and there's nothing nobody can do to stop them. They'd come into my room sometime. And I'd catch them and watch their funny little legs move, and I'd bring them flies."

As if to reenact her story, Bart suddenly leaned back and flung her car door open, scrambling over the seat to grab the brown spider with a single outstretched hand.

Ken recoiled at the eyes and fist and toothy grin now inches from his face, all animal energy where once there was space and stillness, and for a moment he thought she might….what? Throw the spider at him? Eat it? Surely that thing must have bitten her, her invulnerability wouldn’t be necessary for tiny things like that. 

But the look she directed at her cupped fingers  
was not malevolence, or murder. Instead, there was only a fond mischief, like she held a softly whispering secret. Her eyes, once tracked back on Ken, invited him to play.

“Me and the little guys never got caught ever, I’d try to teach them tricks, but spiders are pretty  
stupid, they just sit there.”

He couldn’t help it, Ken smiled. It was cute in an incredibly creepy way, but the same could be  
said for pretty much everything to do with Bart.

“Did you give them any nicknames?”

A head tilt.

“Why would I do that? They’re bugs.”

Fair enough. Ken grabbed the door handle and pulled, keeping it between himself and Bart’s  
new pet. He paused.

“You’re not keeping that thing.”

“You gotta dog.”

But she leaned over and opened her palm, letting the spider fall to the ground and scurry under the car, where said dog watched it with practiced disinterest before stretching and hopping over Bart to get to the back seat.

Then, and only then, did Ken nudge her to her seat and get into the car himself. He buckled up but refrained from commenting when Bart failed to do the same. Ignoring the keys in the ignition, she closed her own side door and then traced an invisible spider onto the window glass. A round, cartoonish body with legs jutting out at all angles. He knew the drill by now, there was no rushing these things.

“So, have you ever heard about the itsy bitsy spider?”

The answering smile was just as bright as it had been with every other piece of trivia he offered, and Ken leaned back in his seat. They would move forward when the time came.


End file.
